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22. Shining a Spotlight: A critical assessment of food and beverage companies’ delivery of sustainability commitments
- Author:
- Emma Fawcett and Suzanne Zweben
- Publication Date:
- 03-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- From 2013 to 2016, Oxfam's Behind the Brands campaign called on the world’s 10 biggest food and beverage companies to adopt stronger social and environmental sourcing policies and spurred significant commitments on women’s empowerment, land rights and climate change. Now, as the coronavirus pandemic worsens inequality and food insecurity around the world, we assess whether the companies have taken meaningful steps to implement the commitments they made in response to the campaign. In this report we find that while companies have taken action at the global level, progress stalls in translating those approaches to countries and through supply chains. There are positive examples and innovations happening in key sourcing countries. But key blockages must be addressed – including by providing the right incentives, disclosing suppliers and supporting suppliers to take up the agenda – to create change at scale.
- Topic:
- Environment, Food Security, Land Rights, Supply Chains, and Gender
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
23. Food security in the long-run: a macroeconomic approach to land use policy
- Author:
- Pedro Naso, Ozgun Haznedar, Bruno Lanz, and Timothy M. Swanson
- Publication Date:
- 11-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
- Abstract:
- It is important to dedicate substantial parts of the global land supply to public good uses in the 21st century, for purposes of climate change management and biodiversity provision. But will it also be possible to meet the food requirements of 12 billion people while doing so? Using a macroeconomic model (MAVA), we demonstrate that it may be possible to provide both for food security and environmental services in the long run. We first show that it may be possible to provide for food security with very substantial constraints on the amount of land used in agriculture with relatively minor welfare losses. We then show that global policies that reallocate labour across sectors of the economy may have the capacity for directing the economy toward reduced reliance on land in agriculture. Focusing on education, research and development, and fertility costs may be the best way to meet these combined goals. Details
- Topic:
- Development, Food Security, Macroeconomics, and Land
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
24. Peace Through Food: Ending the Hunger-Instability Nexus
- Author:
- Kelly M. McFarland
- Publication Date:
- 08-2021
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
- Abstract:
- In the twentieth century, humankind made phenomenal steps to increase food production. But today, complex and interrelated issues drive an increase in food insecurity globally, and propel conflict, migration, and human insecurity. Nearly a billion people, at a minimum, are malnourished or suffer the pains of hunger—while the world wastes a third of food produced. This pain, or the fear of it, drives political instability and conflict as people seek reliable access to food. Adverse climate events, poor resource management, disease outbreaks, breakdowns in distribution, and profit-driven research and development, among other factors, have led to structural imbalances and inequities in the food system, which limit consistent access to nutrition for an increasing number of people. In spring 2021, the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy convened a series of working group meetings with participants representing academia, think tanks, government, international organizations, NGOs, and the private sector. The group mapped out the current state of global food systems, discussed the relationship between hunger and conflict, and sought ways to establish food security as a means to promote stability and end conflict. Ultimately, an end to food insecurity requires three strands of policymaking: re-envision food security as a basic human right; re-think universal food security as a core component of stability and peace; and reform the global food system and distribution networks to address these shifts. Governments, NGOs, international organizations, and the private sector have already provided a foundation, but it is not yet sufficient to address the issue moving forward.
- Topic:
- Food, Food Security, Conflict, Peace, and Instability
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
25. Food for Thought – Talking Points on Food Prices
- Author:
- Nendirmwa Noel and Sarah Cliffe
- Publication Date:
- 04-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
- Abstract:
- This short memo summarizes issues linking the COVID-19 pandemic and food prices. There is a real risk of a food price crisis emerging as a result of the pandemic, for the following reasons: Food systems are facing a complex set of demand and supply shocks during the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes increased demand due to hoarding versus decreased demand due to containment measures; lower prices for food system inputs, such as petroleum, versus decreased supply due to disruption of production, transport and trade. There seems to be a risk that rice, and possibly wheat, see a price surge which disconnects them from the downward trend in other basic commodities. There is also undoubtedly a risk that specific countries and large urban settlements see sharp increases in prices of scarce commodities, as protests in Afghanistan and in Nigeria have already shown this week. The crisis is coming just as farmers in many parts of the world are about to begin planting, and action is therefore needed now.
- Topic:
- Governance, Food Security, Multilateralism, Crisis Management, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
26. COVID-19 and Community Responses
- Author:
- Scott Guggenheim
- Publication Date:
- 04-2020
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
- Abstract:
- This policy briefing examines how governments, multilateral organizations, and international financial institutions can leverage existing and new community-based responses to deal more effectively with the health, social, and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Governments around the world are stretched to their limits trying to cope with not just the health risks of the COVID-19 virus, but also the economic fallout as people lose their jobs and entire sections of the economy close down. In this policy briefing, Pathfinders adviser Scott Guggenheim argues that governments must harness an underutilized but highly effective tool—traditional community solidarity and volunteerism.
- Topic:
- Governance, Food Security, Humanitarian Crisis, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
27. The Geopolitics of Food Security: Barriers to the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger
- Author:
- Jiayi Zhou, Lisa Marie Dellmuth, Kevin M. Adams, Tina-Simone Neset, and Nina von Uexkull
- Publication Date:
- 11-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
- Abstract:
- Assessing the prospects for Zero Hunger—Sustainable Development Goal 2—requires an understanding of food security that goes beyond developmental or humanitarian issues, to include linkages with geopolitics. Geopolitical challenges cut across areas such as natural resources, trade, armed conflict and climate change where unilateralism and zero-sum approaches to security directly hamper efforts to eradicate hunger and undermine the frameworks that govern those efforts. The report provides an overview of how geopolitics interacts with these areas. Competition for agricultural resources can be both a cause and a consequence of geopolitical rivalry. International trade, while essential for food security, also creates vulnerabilities through supply disruptions—sometimes politically motivated. Armed conflict is a driver of food insecurity, which can itself feed into social unrest and violence. Climate change interacts with all three phenomena, reshaping both the physical landscape and political calculus. These overlapping linkages require further integrated policy engagement and analysis.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, International Trade and Finance, Governance, Food Security, Geopolitics, and Peace
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
28. Food Security in Times of Crisis: Poor Developing Countries are Different
- Author:
- Michael Brüntrup
- Publication Date:
- 01-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
- Abstract:
- Until now, the Corona crisis is mainly fought through lockdown measures. In more wealthy countries, these have barely an immediate effect on food security. In poor countries, the situation is different: There, these measures threaten people immediately. The text discusses issues and consequences.
- Topic:
- Development, Poverty, Food Security, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
29. Recommendations within the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic for an Agriculture-Food System that is Self-Sufficient and Resilient to Crises
- Author:
- Murat Doğan
- Publication Date:
- 07-2020
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
- Abstract:
- The Covid-19 pandemic and the situation we are going through constitute an unprecedented moment of crisis. It does not seem possible yet to reach a clear verdict on the gravity, magnitude, spread and duration of the contagion. However, the pandemic and the crisis dynamics triggered by it have started to show their effect in every field of social life, beginning with public health. One of the most basic necessities of human life, food, is among the fields affected foremost by the shockwave caused by the pandemic.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Food, Food Security, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
30. COVID-19, FOOD ACCESS, AND SOCIAL UPHEAVAL
- Author:
- Ida Rudolfsen
- Publication Date:
- 07-2020
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Political Violence @ A Glance
- Abstract:
- According to the World Food Program’s (WFP) latest report, the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to an 82 percent increase in global food insecurity, affecting around 270 million people by the end of the year. On June 29, the organization announced it is undertaking its largest humanitarian effort to assist an increasing number of food-insecure low- and middle-income countries. In a statement about the plan, WFP Executive Director David Beasley said that “until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos. Without it, we could see increased social unrest and protests, a rise in migration, deepening conflict, and widespread under-nutrition among populations that were previously immune from hunger.”
- Topic:
- Food, Food Security, Hunger, Pandemic, COVID-19, and World Food Program (WFP)
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus